(UPBEAT PIANO MUSIC) Our caveman ancestors didn't think very much about the future. Their concerns were more immediate. And that's because most of them never made it past age 15, so planning for the future wasn't a skill that our brains needed to develop. Our ancestors were all about the here and now. But now that 80 is the new 15, how can we make a plan to make sure that we live happily ever after? Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017 Financially speaking, is it possible to live happily ever after? I think it's possible, but I don't think it's easy. I think you have to make sensible choices at a young age. And young people really don't want to be making sensible choices. When` At 30, I thought, '60! (HUFFS) It's a lifetime away.' Retirement feels so far in the future that I don't even really think about it. What's your retirement going to look like? In a word... Not good. Not good at all. A lot of us don't spend much time thinking about our retirement. I've got an experiment to measure our enjoyment or pain around retirement planning. This is a book on retirement, and this is a pen that gives you electric shocks. (PEN BUZZES) I'm gonna leave people alone in this room for 20 minutes and see what happens. Will they plan for their retirement or will they electrocute themselves? So here we are ` a small room. Just to make up the tedium, these pens, they give you small electric shocks if you click them. All right. If you click down the end. Anyway, I shall leave you to it. Thank you. That's it? That's it. Awesome. Can planning for our retirement actually be worse than an electric shock? All of our participants pick up the book on retirement, but will they keep it up for a full 20 minutes? But after just a couple of minutes, some are bored ` so bored that a pen that gives you electric shocks is more attractive. (PEN BUZZES) And there we go. Leanda has lost any interest she had in retirement and has decided to give herself some relief with a little bit of pain. And Claire no longer wants to think about retirement, while Phoebe sits there, pain and retirement equally unappealing. How did the planning go? I had a quick look through the index, but then` I don't think about retirement, and I don't have a will, and I just thought none of those things apply to me. I actually don't think as far ahead as retirement because retirement's in the boring category. Right. But being locked in a room got Oscar facing up to his retirement. I hadn't looked at a lot of that sort of stuff before, and it made me think that I really probably need to start looking at it fairly soon. How much time do you spend, kind of, thinking about the future and planning and stuff like that, Roz? Not much. Not much at all, to be honest. Yeah. For most people, this is one of those things we all know we should do, but, literally, for most of the population, you'd have to lock us in a room and give us the choice between either books on planning for the future or electric shocks to make us pick up the books. Oh, I know. It's crazy, isn't it? One of the reasons we don't think about our retirement is because we know that some time soon, any day now, probably tomorrow, we're going to get on to it. And I've got an experiment that shows our optimism at work. I'm going to offer people a hamper of fruit or a box of chocolate to be delivered to them in a week's time. What will they choose? I would say,... um, fruit. Then I'm going to give them a second choice ` a chocolate bar or a piece of fruit right now. Just one only? Yeah, yeah. (BOTH LAUGH) We want two. So, we've got the health nuts who chose a hamper of fruit in a week's time and a piece of fruit right now. I'll take an apple. All right. And chocolate lovers who will never turn down chocolate. Chocolate. They want it in a week's time,... Chocolate. ...and they want it right now. That one's bigger. (LAUGHTER) But the third group are the most interesting psychologically. So, what would you take a week from today? A box of fruit. Probably fruit. Probably fruit. Yeah. Definitely fruit. I'll take the fruit. They all want to be good in the future, but what do they choose when it comes to right now? Well, I would take a piece of chocolate. (LAUGHS) Go on, then. Chocolate. Help yourself. I'll have a piece of chocolate. Help yourself. I'd probably have the chocolate. Help yourself. A week from now, I'll be healthy. (LAUGHS) Thank you, Nigel. You're welcome. A lot of us think we'll be good in the future, but when it comes to the crunch, we don't necessarily do the right thing. So when the government wanted us to save for our retirement, they had to use a few tricks to stop us binging on chocolate right now and convince us to put money away for a big fruit hamper when we turn 65. So they bribed us with $1000 to sign up for the fruit hamper, and they set it up so we automatically began paying for the fruit hamper when we started a new job. And our bosses were told that they had to chuck in a banana or two as well so there'd be a massive fruit hamper by the time we retired. And it worked. Over 2.5 million New Zealanders have a fruit hamper waiting for them ` KiwiSaver. Next we find out how much talking to your partner about money really matters. Do you think that you will ever be rich? (BOTH LAUGH) 1 James and Amy have been together seven months, and they're about to get really serious and move in together. I wanna find out how money fits into their relationship by playing a little game with them. First, let's find out a bit about the lovebirds. All right, so, let's ask you a few questions to see how well you actually know each other. Where was your first kiss? Car park at Stonefields. Oh yeah. I put 'car park outside a Japanese restaurant'. Which was in Stonefields. Yeah. So that counts. What was your first real argument about? Amount of time spent together. Oh yeah. I've put 'drunken confusion'. (BOTH LAUGH) And how did you meet? (CHUCKLES) Tinder. Yeah. (LAUGHS) Yeah. This is a personal question, but would you say that you're in love? Is it, like, a love thing? Yes. Yeah. (BOTH LAUGH) Yes. Yeah, no, we are. And what about kids? Like, have you had the kid talk? (CHUCKLES) We talk about kids quite a lot. We even joke about what our children will be like. Yeah, yeah. How many children would you like? Ideally two. Maybe three. I've put two kids, two greyhounds. (LAUGHS) Have you had the money talk? Have you had a conversation about money? I don't think we've ever had a money conversation. I don't think we have. We` The closest we'd get to a money conversation is, 'Who's paying for this?' That's interesting because when I asked you about love, the answer was instant. Money ` there was a moment of looking. I guess. Why do you think it's easier to talk about children than it is to talk about money? I think money is kind of a boring thing to talk about. Kids are fun to talk about. Uh... Is that`? That's about it? Yeah. Yeah, totally. Is the money stuff awkward to talk about? I haven't really felt the need to have it, I guess. Mm. Now, some financial questions to see how financially compatible you are. Joint bank accounts ` three years, five years, 10 years or never? 10 years. Whoa. Three years. The way couples deal with money has seen a dramatic change in recent years. How do couples set up their finances these days? I mean, you think back 50 years ago, there was the typical thing about, you know, you get married very young, you settle down, you have kids and probably drop down to one income. That's really changed nowadays, and there are multiple variations of a family scenario that you can imagine. Percentage of your income that you think you should be saving for your retirement now? 15? (LAUGHS) Two. 2% Is marriage a kind of financial decision? Theoretically, no, but technically, it can be quite a big part of your financial future. So, figuring out each other's, kind of, money personality is quite important. It's pretty important. I mean, money can be one of the biggest stress factors in a relationship for a lot of couples. So, you know, whether you're both savers or both spenders or you've got one saver and one spender... Do you think that you will ever be rich? And so you end quite far down a relationship before you actually have those tough conversations about 'What are your financial goals?' You know, 'Do you wanna retire at 30 or do you wanna retire at 70?' Yeah. I've never thought about how compatible we are with money. Maybe because we've had such similar views about money, we, kind of, haven't talked about it. Yeah. Haven't really needed to. Although that was never really top of my list on things to check out about you, I guess. (LAUGHS) In some ways, we're all a bit like James and Amy. And this is actually a rather sweet side to us. When we look into the future, a lot of us think it's all going to be great. But do we look at the past and future differently? We've set up these two wall panels, and what we're gonna do is ask people to tell us about a significant event from their past, to imagine a significant event that may happen to them in the future, then we're gonna paint their hands and make some art. If the event is negative, we're going to get them to put a red handprint on the wall. If the event's positive, they'll make a green handprint. Are our participants glass half-full or glass half-empty? This morning, it seems there's a mix of positive and negative events going up on the wall. Just a world of memories, really. Not all negative. There's definitely things that you'd always change about your past, isn't there? Yup. (GIGGLES) Future? Definitely positive. You have to think like that, though. If you look at the two panels, they're strangely beautiful because this is how people see their lives. But it's also really revealing because the past is a mixture of red and green, but the future is overwhelmingly green. This is known as optimism bias. The good thing about it is that we wake up happy to face the day, but the bad news is it's a reason we might not buy medical insurance or save for our retirement. There's also another reason we don't plan for our future. When you think about yourself, this part of the brain lights up. And when you think about a stranger, it dims. All well and good, but here's the thing ` when you think about your future self, it dims. Our brains think about our future selves like a stranger. So, is there a way to build more of a connection between us and our future selves so that far-off person feels less like a stranger and more like a friend? I want to help Helen and Ben become friends with their future selves. They've been together for seven years, and they're just starting to think about having kids. So, how did you guys meet? Ben turned up to a party at my house. I'd never met him before. I ended up getting a phone call saying, 'You don't know me, but I'm coming to your party. Where do you live?' And I was like, 'Ooh, that's a very sexy English accent.' And he just never really left, I guess, after that, funnily enough. What are the things that you both have in common? We love board games. We love hanging out with each other at the weekends, going for walks. What are the differences between the two of you? Um, we both have very different... ...ideas of life in general. (CHUCKLES) Sounds terrible. So, would you say that you are a saver or a spender? I'm definitely the spender in the family. And I'm the saver. And you were quite definitive about that? Yeah. Much to Ben's disgust. What do you do that makes you the spender? I think if you look at my bank account, it's 'wine, wine, sushi, sushi, sushi, sushi, wine, wine.' Maybe a bit of clothes at the bottom. I like having money in my bank account, and I don't like other people spending my money when I earn it. If you were to paint a picture of yourselves at 65, 70, what do you see? I think I'm pretty bad in that I don't have that long-term foresight. I'm like, 'We'll deal with that when it gets there. I'll just deal with the next couple of years.' If you were peering through the window, and it was you guys when you were 70, what's the scene? What would you see? Relaxing. Probably be part of a board game club. Um,... looking over a vast expanse of land somewhere away from the city. Not very hectic home life. Travelling, probably, twice a year. I mean, it sounds a bit grim, but if things don't work out, what would be your, kind of, the least ideal future if things haven't worked out? If savings weren't going so well, I mean, if one of us lost a job or something like that, which would obviously hamper all the future plans, then we'd just end up being closer to the city for longer, living a more urban lifestyle and in the rat race still. Unforeseen illness, as well, is a big thing, if one of us weren't able to work for whatever reason. Snowboarding accident or something. Do you have a savings plan? A future plan? Um, not really. Yeah, it's a bit fluid. It's pretty fluid, yeah. We just have a pot of money that just` we throw money in. If you want your future to be like your dream, then you have to plan properly. Stuart Dawe is a financial adviser, and he reckons there are some basics you have to tick off. And, yup, you just have to budget. By budgeting, they're identifying, you know, what funds they've got. And then if they've got any excess funds, they can use that to maybe pay down more debt, which will achieve that goal of the house in the country a lot quicker. Kids are on the horizon ` fairly close. How is that going to change things? Uh, that will change things dramatically for them. Um, I've had children. You're going along with your plan. Kids come along. You've really gotta review your plan cos things change. All those` that excess cash that you once had disappears very, very quickly. You've got nappies, day-care. Lots of other things come up that you've never even thought of before. Perhaps there's a way to show them their future using the Nudge Unit ` my hand-picked undercover team that can sort out anyone's money worries. Go, go, go. We're ready to do anything at any time to solve the smallest and biggest of problems... ...by giving people a little nudge in the right direction. (LAUGHS) All right, team. So, Ben and Helen, this is a pivotal point for them. One wrong move from here on in, and it could go badly. So we're going to show them two visions of the future ` the good one and the bad one ` and we'll see where it leads them. Meet 69-year-old Ben, a Nudge Unit actor who's going to show actual Ben what his future could be like. And this is 71-year-old Helen. I've written two scenarios that the future Ben and Helen are going to act out ` a nice future and a not-so-nice one. I've called our couple to a city apartment, but they have no idea why. I'm going to show them the future based on facts from their current life. I need them to buy into the idea that they're watching their real future play out. Helen, Ben. Hi. Hey. So, fairly unique experience. What I want you to do is to meet your future selves. This is you ` Ben and Helen of the future where you have made, perhaps, not the best of decisions. FUTURE BEN: Looking forward to the Formula 1 on TV later. If we hadn't paid for that wedding, we could have been in Singapore now. You've got to give your daughter a wedding. The future Helen and Ben have thrown a really expensive wedding for their daughter. Everything our actors are saying is based on things that the real Ben and Helen have talked to us about. When I had my accident and I couldn't work any more, they gave me this bloody horrible office job. Couldn't do it. Couldn't ride my scooter to work. We could have spent that money on` Well, you know, you think the government's going to pay for everything, but it doesn't really happen like that. In this future, where things haven't gone well, Ben and Helen have had to give up their car. So we still have to walk? No, we'll catch a bus. I'll take an umbrella. You don't even have a golf umbrella cos you don't play golf. We could sell the clubs, couldn't we? That'd give us enough money for your crate of wine a month. This is a little close to home. Yeah, well, I'll let you have the credit card when I tell you where I've hidden it. (CHUCKLES) Nothing ever changes. I suppose I better go and get dressed. Is the shower fixed? (CHUCKLES) No. Well, these have gone all soggy. Even the Coco Pops are Ben's favourite cereal. How have the real Ben and Helen found this experience? I wanna give them a chance to ask some questions of their future selves. Nice to meet you. BOTH: Likewise. How's life? Oh, it's not what we expected it would be. BEN: So, what happened? What went wrong? I had a ski accident. I couldn't do my job properly. They gave me a desk job cos I couldn't do my job properly. I had to take a cut in wages. Couldn't afford the medical insurance. And here we are. We've still got bills for my leg. We've had to pay for a wedding. Do you find you make your life choices depending on how much things cost? Very much so. Very much so, yes. If you can't afford it, you don't do it. You just don't have it. This isn't exactly where we wanted to be. What's it like looking at this possible glimpse of you in the future? No offence, but incredibly confronting. Yeah. Yeah, quite daunting, really, cos you don't necessarily plan for the worst. You might plan for something to go wrong, but you don't necessarily plan for multiple things to go` go wrong. It's here now, right? Because it's the decisions and the things that you do today take you closer towards this one or closer towards something positive. All right, so, that's one possibility. Should we go and have a look at another one? Yeah, I think so. Sounds good. Next, we find out what their lives could look like with a bit more planning. Just needs a glass of wine just about there. 1 Ben and Helen haven't got a plan for their retirement. We're trying to see if we can help get them motivated by showing them the future. They were shaken by the vision of the future we showed them if they don't plan properly and have some bad luck. Now we want to show them what a planned retirement could look like. So, you had a plan, and you've stuck to the plan. You've done all the right things, and it's ended up OK. So, this is the other possible future. I better be winning. FUTURE HELEN: Number 9. Where do I put that, now? Just needs a glass of wine just about there. I've booked the flights, and I've booked the hotel. Good. And we're leaving on Friday, Friday morning, straight to Singapore. F1 again. F1. In this future, they get to fly to Singapore to watch the Formula 1 they love. Ben and Helen look visibly relieved with this vision of the future. Is this kind of the vision that you had for the future? Definitely. A few more pets, a few more kids. We've worked hard for it. Yup. Should we go and have a chat to them? Yeah, I think so. FUTURE HELEN: Take that home with you. Hi, guys. Who's winning? Well, I'm not. My mind's sort of on our trip to Singapore. Yes. We're going to the Grand Prix. Looking forward to that. Something we've been looking forward to for a long time. Yes. Oh, yeah. You should do it, but you'll have to plan for it. Did you have to save hard and plan hard? We've had to save hard. And it's been the little things. We've had to be careful how we spend. Yes. We had our, um, health insurance. And we did well out of KiwiSaver. Yes. We've had a good life. Keep on with the saving. Keep on with the KiwiSaver. And have a plan B. You got to have a plan B because plan kid will come along soon. So are you guys still working? We do work, but only because we want to. Not because you need to. Mm. That's right. It buys the odd nice wine. As we know, our brain thinks of our future self as a stranger. Has seeing their future helped Ben and Helen connect with their future selves? What was it like, kinda, seeing these two visions of the future ` the good one and the not-so-good one? Very confronting. Yeah. It was quite weird seeing` Like, the good, you just sort of expect, and you want to carry on through, and that's what you're gonna get in life. No one looks into the future to see the bad. But actually having it right in front of your face is like` It's quite scary. And it makes you realise that those decisions have to be made now. Start planning for that now. Which had the most impact? You know, the good future or the bad future? The good was really motivating to see. Um, we think we're on track. Um, future looks really bright, looks fantastic. But the bad future, the first one, was quite a shock and quite confronting. It's something you don't wanna think about, haven't thought about. You kinda wanna push away. But, actually, you need to start planning for that now. It's quite scary that there's not actually that much time between now and then. How do you get from A to B? If you can't see what B is, then you don't really know how to get between the two. Ben and Helen's choices about how they want to live in the future aren't really about money. In fact, most of the questions we think are about money are actually about us. If you spend all your life chasing money, you're gonna miss out on other things, so it has to be in balance. You've gotta make sure that there's enough time for you to do what you actually want to do. It's no good getting to 50 to 60 having made a whole lot of money but having done nothing really along the way. If you had a million dollars, would you be happier? Probably not. I'm sorry. That's all right. Because there are things in life money can't fix. If you're born into a family that's just wealthy, then you're gonna think money's the greatest thing in the world. You're like, 'Yeah, I've got all this money. I can do anything.' But if you're not so lucky, you probably think money is an evil thing. It's a way to control people. If you're always wanting money and money has a huge influence on your life, you're gonna miss out on so many things. We think of money as cold and emotionless, but the reality is that money is simply stored energy; we release it when we spend it. And when we spend it, it is all about emotion. We're not irrational, cold decision-makers. We are warm-blooded, irrational, emotional humans. Sure, that means we're prone to making decisions which aren't always sensible, but if this series is about one thing, it's about accepting our humanness rather than ignoring it. And if we can do that, then maybe we'll finally get our mind over money.